The composition of a Fuchsian representation with the Kostant principal embedding of \(\mathrm {PSL}_2(\mathbb {R})\) into an adjoint split real semisimple Lie group G provides a class of fundamental group representations of profound importance. All these representations lie in one connected component of the character variety, the so-called Hitchin component, and all representations in this component are discrete and faithful. Framed versions of character varieties allow for a cluster structure, i.e. coordinate systems with special birational transition maps. These are in particular subtraction-free giving the well-defined notion of points with positive coordinates. The positive part of the character variety is the Hitchin component.